Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Richard Kiel
Richard Kiel
By Ed Donovan (archives)
You may recognize him as Jaws in the blockbuster James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker. But it took him over 17 years of doing B movies and television shows to become and overnight success.
He was born Richard Dawson Kiel on September 13, 1938 in Detroit, Michigan. His parents George Kiel and his mother Mary Mobbs Kiel were appliance store owners. Rich has a sister Georgann. He went to school at Volney Smith in Redford, Michigan then to Willard Elementary in South San Gabriel California. He later went to Lexington Elementary and then Columbia elementary in El Monte, California. Richard claims he was shy around girls but not shy enough to stop him from pursuing them and getting his first date kiss on a movie date.
He excelled at sports and was an all star softball pitcher for the Driftwood Daily Bulldogs but that all changed when he grew to 6’8 at the age of 14. This was a result of an overactive pituitary through puberty. This was a time as a result of this quick growth was a period of physical exhaustion. His parent now owned an appliance/television sales business and repair shop and Richard would lie on the floor to sleep whenever he could. He had trouble staying awake in classes as he was growing so rapidly. He couldn’t compete in sports anymore because of the fatigue. It took him several years to grow into his size today 7’2 and get used to it.
At 14 he was now 6’8 and could only see out of one eye due to being blind at birth in his right eye. Catching and throwing the softball was easy but to try to catch a small baseball was impossible for him. He was on the Varsity football team in his freshman year but because they had such a great team he hardly got to play at all. His father proposed that he start to work at the family TV and appliance store, earn a new car and learn the business.
Rich was also a member of the Glee Club in elementary school and he went to a lot of sock hops and danced with a few girls. At this time he won a contest that gave him free dance lessons at Arthur Murrays. He would go to the Garden of Allah club in Hollywood where he would put into practice his dance lessons doing the samba or tango dancing to the music of Tito Fuente.
He didn’t do any acting in high school but he learned the knack of putting comedy into his public speaking course. At Baldwin Park High School he was very popular and a member of the “loafers” car club. They had jackets with a loafer shoe turned into a car on the back of a white leather sleeves. He looked like a 7’2 Fonzi.
Rich attended L.A. State College where he did some acting in plays. He went to this vocational school in order to get a Federal Broadcasters First class license. This helped him later to get a job at a TV station where he did the The Paul Bunyan Show.
Rich says, “My father died suddenly from a heart attack when I was 19. I immediately went to work with my mom at the appliance store. We went out of business so mom decided to sell cemetery plots. I was delivering lines from the cemetery script like “When they pull the sheets, Mr. Baker, it’s too late to take care of these things and that now is the time that you need to take care of this. Tonight, I am here to help you with it.”
Little did Rich know that this was his first introduction to acting. Rich states,” Of course spending your time at 19 and 20 talking about death gets a little depressing.” This was not for Rich who now had grown at 19 to 7’1 and weighed about 310 lbs.
As fate would have it looking for another job, a man at the Pepsi Vending Machine Company told him about his brother who owned a nightclub in North Hollywood. He told Rich that he should go there as a lot of directors and producers go there and they might be looking for a man your size. Rich went there and due to his size he was hired by the brother on the spot as a bouncer. Rich says, “I did everything I could to keep things under control. I really didn’t like fighting but being 7’2 and 310 lbs. you simply have to look mean, I got a lot of practice being a tough guy when I was actually a pussycat.”
One night while working at the club Rich got a call from an unknown person who wanted to know if he was talking to the big guy and asked him how tall he was. Rich told him 7’2 and the man asked him if he would be interested in working on a TV show. The voice identified himself as Bob Gilbert and told Rich to come to his office. Bob Gilbert explained that the TV show was The Phantom based on the comic strip character. “I met him at his office and he shook my hand and I made a deal that changed my life forever.”
Later he was cast in a show call Klondike starring James Coburn, it was a SAG production and the producer William Conrad told the casting director to throw in a couple of extra hundred dollars to help with his SAG fee. Rich says, “Here I am 20 years old with a part bigger than Lon Chaney Jr. and about to be working with Paulette Goddard.” Rich had tried desperately to get an agent no one seem interested in a 7’2 giant. He went to Herman Zimmerman who told him to come back in six months. After having done two TV shows and now with a SAG card Rich boldly walked into Zimmerman’s office and said to him, “I have a SAG card and I have two heavy roles do you want to be my agent now? Mr. Zimmerman was impressed and signed me. That was a business relationship that lasted 20 years until Mr. Zimmerman died.”
In order to pay bills Rich got hired as a prop man. Rich says, “They say John Wayne started as a prop man and then became an extra before becoming an actor. That was encouraging to me but to tell the truth I hated it. I was offered a permanent job as a prop man and I would get a union card. The bad news was I would have to give up acting. I wanted to be an actor so that was the end of my job as a prop man.”
So for a while Rich went on to selling and installing screen doors. He got a call to work on a new project The Phantom Planet a feature film starring Dean Fredericks and Coleen Gray. Rich says, “The worst part of my role on this seven day shoot was I played the Solitaire
creature and that required full body makeup. I should say full body rubber suit that required no makeup and I had no lines. My next project was being cast as a caveman in Eegah. This is the story of a caveman who is still living in a cave on the outskirts of Palm Springs. He goes out at night in search of food and brings a young girl back to his cave. One thing leads to another the girl escapes with the help of her boyfriend and father and the giant cave man is killed. Little did I know then that one day I would be known around the world for my role as Jaws in two James Bond films and also for having been in one of the 100 worst movies of all time, Eegah.”
Rich favorite shows were the ones where he got to talk and even act. He got to do that when he was cast in My Mother the Car with Jerry Van Dyke. He got to tell jokes and wear a suit and tie. On one occasion, while watching the dallies, he noticed he didn’t stand out. They didn’t use different camera angles to make him look even bigger. Rich says, “I learned along the way that the camera shooting a flat picture has a hard time seeing the difference between a guy 6’2 and a guy 7’2. Camera angles are everything and I learned how to help directors make that work.”
Rich went on to work Thriller hosted by Boris Karloff. He had to play an Englishman with a cockney accent. To do this he bought a book entitled Foreign Dialects and he worked on his accents with a tape recorder until he got it down right. His next gig was a Western, The Rifleman with Chuck Connors. He kept getting parts not just due to his acting ability but also because of his ability to look the part. He always tried to look the part he was auditioning for if it was for a banker you don’t show up wearing jeans, you show up wearing a suit. However if they are looking for a man to play a prisoner you don’t want to wear a suit. Rich says, “I’ve worked this method time after time and it always worked.”
Rich was cast in a series of TV shows including The Man from Uncle, it was a small role but it turned into a larger one when the series was sold, as a result he worked a lot that year. One thing that was apparent to Rich was that he needed to work on his acting and his voice. He sought out Ben Bard who helped him with breathing techniques and even taught him how to get into the crying mode. Rich says, “I was a very shy person and still am to this day and getting help in acting helped me a lot. I learned over the years, I could get professional help for better roles when I got them. I can share with you that over the years I learned that most actors, singers, and comedians are insecure and push themselves into role-playing in order to overcome their fears. When you get to do TV and movies, you get to do it over and over again, if you don’t get it right the first time.”
He finally got a role in a play The Roar of Grease Paint with Joel Grey and Cyril Richard. He did the play because casting agents would ask’ Have you done any legitimate theater? By doing this play he was going to be able to say yes. Rich says, “I chalked up the expenses and pain to this being a learning expense. I strained my back carrying Joel Grey onto center stage and, in spite of trips to the chiropractor and prescription pain pills; I was in a lot of pain. He then was cast as Tiny in I Spy with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby. These were two very dramatic roles for him which helped to show he could talk and act. Rich even ran an ad to bring his role in I Spy to the attention of the industry.
Rich was doing very well financially in the real estate business and he was thinking of quitting show business when he caught the interest of a film going to be directed by Robert Aldrich, The Longest Yard starring Burt Reynolds. Rich made it into the film as Sampson, a Mr. Florida body builder. “I met my wife Diane while filming The Longest Yard in Georgia. We met at a dance club called The Flame on the weekend and were both watching the people dance when our eyes met and although I didn't have metal teeth nor the Romeo and Juliet theme going on the sparks still flew as they still do to this day.”
His next project came with some hurdles, stunts. Nightstalker with Darren McGavin. Rich played a giant Indian, who could turn into a hawk or coyote whenever it suits his fancy. One scene called for him to jump to a roof below and land on a mattress... Rich says he saw an actor badly injured on a TV show trying to his own stunts. I also knew if I did the stunt I would be taking money out of the pocket of the stunt man. I told the director “I suffered from acrophobia, a fear of heights; I didn’t even like being this tall.”
Continuing on from one gig to another Starsky and Hutch, the Barbary Coast and the Hulk he was working on Silver Streak when he developed a hernia in his groin. He had a scene where he had to break down a door with an axe. Luckily he did it in one take and went to a doctor in Long Beach. While working on Silver Streak he got a call from his agent Herman who was extremely excited and told Rich that “Cubby Broccoli wants to see you for lunch tomorrow. Rich said Cubby who? Herman said Cubby Broccoli, the James Bond producer; he wants to see you for lunch tomorrow at the Polo Lounge at Beverly Hills Hotel.
See if you can get permission tomorrow for a long lunch. I ran it by the assistant director on the set and when he heard Cubby wanted to see Rich he said are you kidding me, Cubby Broccoli, damn right, take a two hour lunch and meet him!
Rich went to the Beverly Hills Hotel the next day and sat at his table when Rich says,” a well dressed rotund man approached my table and I stood up to meet him. It was like something out of a movie. Cubby didn’t waste any time telling me about the character he was considering me for. First the director’s secretary had seen me on The Barbary Coast television series, which was running in England, and she thought he should see me. He said the character we have in mind will have special teeth, either like tools or like a shark. They will be made out of shiny steel and he kills people with them. I thought oh, no! I thought another monster role. Before I said anything it came to me this is a James Bond movie, you know how much you love the James Bond movies. Why not try to make the most of it. I had learned from experience that it is important to play a part in a way that you feel will work for you. I spoke some pretty brave words to him. I believe you need an actor do this part. If I were to play the role I would want to give the character some real life idiosyncrasies. I would let him have a certain vulnerability to offset the bizarre teeth. His response was that he wanted me to come by his house to meet his family and a few friends.”
Rich called his agent Herman and told him what happened and of course he was ecstatic. He drove to Cubby’s home, which was in Bel-Aire on about 5 acres. He was met by Cubby who introduced him to his wife, Dana, one of his daughters and one of the writers. He was a man who treated everyone with respect and those he worked with closely he treated them like family. Before you knew it Rich was on his way to London for wardrobe fittings and to a dental technician’s office near Pinewood Studios to get the teeth designed and made prior to production. The teeth were made by the dental technician who was only able to forge one set out of heavy chromium or cobalt steel. The production company wanted several sets in order to have a spare or two in case one set got damaged or misplaced but the dental technician found that getting that much chrome to melt was nigh impossible and when he finally was able after much time and effort to get at least one set made he said that was it.
They were uncomfortable but not really painful as they had a plastic liner so they wouldn’t damage your own teeth and were like a boxer’s mouthpiece. The uncomfortable part was that they went up into the roof of my mouth and that combined with the taste of metal created a gagging effect.
I was only able to keep them in for a minute or so at a time and when the director said “cut print” out they came to be washed in mouthwash and placed into a Tupperware type container filled with sterile cotton. Because they only made one pair I wasn’t able to keep a set as the “one and only set” had to be kept in a safe. I do, however, have a replica set.
I came back about a month later with my wife Diane and RG who was about 18 months old. After production in London we went to Cairo, Egypt. The production manager did not want Diane to go to Egypt as he considered it a dangerous place to bring a pregnant wife and child. After many discussions from Rich they all went to Cairo. I always took my family on my film locations. My belief is that a lot of actors leave their spouse at home or the children with a nanny. I believe leaving your spouse at home alone is a sure fire recipe for an unhappy marriage. There’s too much temptation when you have two lonely people thousands of miles apart-not just for the actor but for the spouse at home, who is feeling neglected and handling the children on their own. Many actors have lost their children to drugs and alcohol and suicide because they left them behind with a nanny or boarding schools.
Rich found himself working with Roger Moore and Barbara Bach in the Valley of the Kings. “Roger became a close friend and one night as we were at a dinner and Diane was sitting next to him he wanted to know how Diane and I met while she was just 18 and I was 34. He called me a “cradle robber.” We got along very well with him. We both have a good sense of humor and we managed to use it in our scenes together. Roger has a heart bigger than his ego and this was important if Jaws was going to be entertaining. Some stars would have objected to what Jaws was doing as they would consider it "scene stealing." Roger was too much of a team player to care whether Jaws was being entertaining in a scene. I believe that he felt that if the audience liked it then it was good for the film.
I think that Lewis liked what I was doing with the character and decided to expand upon the humor. He did that with Roger’s Bond character as well. Roger was well known for his gags which normally became funny outtakes to be laughed at in the screening room only. Lewis decided to leave many humorous adlibs in and it gave Roger’s Bond a fun quality that worked very well for him.
I remember watching the scene where the underwater Lotus car come out of the ocean and Roger rolls down the window and drops a little fish out as he drives up on the beach. Cubby Broccoli was at the screening with a journalist and we could hear him say: “That’s one of Roger’s little gags and it won’t be in the film.” My wife, Diane, who was watching and overheard the remark said to me privately: That’s funny; too bad they are going to cut it
Well, they left it in along with other Roger gags and it played well to the audience. The relationship between Jaws and Bond was enhanced, I believe, by Roger’s sense of humor. “How does that grab you?” he says as the magnet sucks me up by the teeth which is only accomplished by him smiling at me which causes me to smile back and then when he looks up it causes me to look up and that is why the magnet clamps on to my smiling teeth.
So Lewis took Roger’s Bond and the Jaws character into a new direction and this was accepted quite well in the first film “The Spy Who Loved Me”.
In between the two James Bond movie Rich did three movies, they included They Went That-Away and That-Away with Tim Conway. Then he was cast in Force 10 from Navarone. The film stared Harrison Ford, Robert Shaw, Franco Nero, Edward Fox, Carl Weathers and Barbara Bach. The film was shot in London studios and locations in Yugoslavia. It was a World War 11 epic with Rich playing a Chetnic Nazi sympathizer named Captain Drazac. Rich says, “I found there it wasn’t only the Yugoslavian people there that were having problems with alcohol. Robert Shaw had a reputation as a heavy drinker. A short time after I finished Force 10 from Navarone¸ Robert Shaw died on a golf course. He had 10 children, a young wife and a 10 month old baby. I also had a young wife and three children and this shocked me into reality, as I was beginning to have a drinking problem myself. I tried going on the wagon several times but something always came up to cause me to fail. I even tried hypnosis, which helped me to quit smoking, but the alcohol problem was bigger than me and I didn’t have enough will power to quit. Then I tired prayer and it seemed to work as I haven’t had a problem with alcohol in over 25 years.
Next came Moonraker, again with Roger Moore as my nemeses.
Rich arrived in Paris and later met with his friend and stunt co-ordinator Bob Simmons. He brought a script to Rich’s hotel room. Rich was pleased with the script as jaws had a girlfriend who was described as being six feet tall. This was the first time since Eegah that he had a love interest. The next day he met with Cubby and he explained some of the many things he had planned for Rich. He listened patiently until Cubby got to the part where the girlfriend was to be seven foot four inch women. Rich says, “I explained to Cubby in my early years everyone was always trying to fix me up with tall women. The only girl I dated in High School was about 5’1 so you see I was always attracted to little women. Cubby laughed as he described how this woman would pull me out of the wreckage. I told him that her being so big destroyed the motivation that would turn Jaws into a good guy because he needs to save his little woman.”
Cubby was frustrated and the production manger reminded Rich that he had a contract which Rich told them he had not yet signed. Cubby asked him then what he had in mind for the woman to which Rich replied a woman around five feet tall. They asked Rich if the audience would believe that and he said, “ my wife is five foot one and we have two children and another one on the way.” They ended up casting a French actress, Blanche Ravelec.
The actress, Blanche Ravalec was able to convince the audience that she fell for Jaws within seconds of meeting him and it all worked like it was supposed to.
A very successful director once told me that a good actor would be able to show the audience through his eyes what was going on in his head. When Roger Moore as James Bond points out to me that Dolly and I are not going to fit into his perfect society of only beautiful people I tried to convey through my eyes and expression that I figured out that it was time to change sides.
Richard Kiel has appeared in over a dozen films such as Pale Rider and Happy Gilmore. He appeared on the cover of People Magazine along with Sir Roger Moore and Lis Chiles. Most recently, the seven-foot, two-inch actor's likeness can be seen in the new James Bond video games, Everything or Nothing and Goldeneye as well as on the cover of his autobiography, Making it BIG at the Movies.
For a complete list of his films go to:http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001423
His website is: http://www.richardkiel.com/
Richard Kiel can be reached at: [email protected]
